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Friday, September 24, 2010

2010 is the year of the tablet

Last year, industry experts were predicting that 2010 was going to be the year of the tablet. They weren't necessarily speaking about tablet PCs running Windows. We all knew that Apple was going to launch a slate tablet this year. Many speculated that it was going to be called the iSlate or the iTablet. Some thought it was going to be called the iPad.

The iPad has generated a tremendous amount of buzz around the digital tablet and it has caused a number of manufacturers to jump into the slate tablet market. HP will be coming out with a slate running webOS. Dell the Streak running Android. Samsung has the Galaxy Tab runnning Android. BlackBerry has the BlackPad coming soon.

By the end of the year, we'll be surrounded by slate tablets ranging from iPads to others running Android, webOS, and BlackBerry. I have to naturally assume that Microsoft will be releasing slates running Windows Phone 7 (maybe they'll need to rename their OS).

In any case, I still wonder about the traditional tablet PC running Windows. Will these tablet PCs ever regain traction? I think we can all confidently say that ultra-mobile PCs (such as the Samsung Q1 running Windows) are dead. What will be next?